Mantic's KS : Terrain Crate

[knightkrawler]

I have tried Mantic three times now, once in several different kinds of product, and if you're gonna say, "Well, they're cheap",
then I'm gonna say "And you can clearly see why in all of their product I've ever seen and owned."

Well, you can't deny their zombies and ghouls are great.
That's not much to say for a company, but still.

Oh, but I can and I will.
Zombies: comparison with the unbelievable *lemony goodness* GW has to offer. Nothing much els on the market. The outrageously good Confrontation Zombies are hard to come by. But there are quite a few minis on the market that can stand in for Zoimbies but are named otherwise, like Malifaux's Living Impaired. Red Box's Zombies are too small and still way better than Mantic's in style, look and workability.
Ghouls: GW's own crypt ghouls are way better looking even though slightly "alien", and Confrontation's are just gorgeous. Also: Heresy. Best ghouls on the market now.

You say "great", I say lucky the big manufacturers don't have anything on the market that is buyable in regiment sizes.
Your great is my meh, and again: you would be of a different opinion if they weren't so cheap.
And the cheap comes with the territory, below-par quality and hard to work with.

[Thor-in]

This is kind of a side note on this subject but seeing as everyone is talking about the quality of miniatures I came across a video on YouTube the other day. They were talking about Wizkids Dungeons & Dragons Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures.

Has anyone ever worked with their products before?

I have not yet had a chance myself to get some but the quality seemed to be every detailed, and the plastic was a mix between GW's and Reaper Bones.

[cornixt]

I saw them in a store at the weekend (still in their packaging, but it has a clear window). I think they only just came out. They are surprisingly good looking for pre-painted stuff, even if the style isn't always to my taste and some of the poses are a bit odd.

[Thantos]

Ahh well im happy again after seeing the new video on mantics facebook.
Shows what comes in their new dungeon set. Crates, barrels, basic bookcases and minecarts. Not the most imaginative and in my opinion the sculpts are pretty poor. Im not sure why they didn't get one of their regular decent sculptors onto it. Does look like they are done by a kid who has learnt zbrush a week ago :/ (and who has no idea how wood grain looks in real life).

Like KK said - It's cheap and cheerful, so in a different category to our stuff. Still wish they had picked a new font and TC abbreviation, but hey-ho.

[knightkrawler]

Mine carts? Why do all these people think we want mine carts lall the time? Not the first time i've seen that. Mine carts! For crying out loud...

[Ragnar IronFist]

Surprised how many haters towards Mantic.. okay maybe not. I got in on their Dungeon Saga KS, and they pissed everybody off with late deadlines and misprinted books and asking for shipping for the replacement books etc.
But I got all my Dungeon saga stuff, painted it and all-in-all it's a pretty darn sweet game. And I thought the minis were pretty great, if you can forgive it being that breakable plastic. The furniture was especially sweet, I thought.

[QorDaq]

So, I'm not a hater of Mantic. I also understand (or think I do), why Thanatos might be frustrated with a competing company utilizing a possibly confusingly similar trade name if abbreviations are taken into account, (TC).

Personally, I like that there is to be more mass produced plastic terrain in the wild because I am NOT a fan of resin these days. If I painted terrain, I might be, but as much as I have had to move over the years, I can REALLY appreciate lightweight plastic that can survive being transported. After my last move, in fact, I was so frustrated with having to pack and store my ridiculous collection of heavy, fragile, Dwarven Forge sets (Most of which was from the original Master Maze Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Tavern lines), that I sold them off , for next to nothing (Nearly three grand retail worth of DF for around $750), just to not have to ever worry about transporting it all again.

I have since, pretty much resolved to never invest in mass amounts of delicate and weighty terrain again. That's not to say that I would not purchase a particular item that I wanted, but plastic sooo has it's place on my gaming table these days.

All of that said, I have been very curious to see what Mantic has in mind. However, in that video, what seriously disappointed me, was that in the teaser trailer Mantic showed only a handful of items, but showed them so quickly that when they inserted an image they previously used, with a new title-blurb, in between new images, it felt like they were exaggerating the variety of items available by selling the idea that each sculpt was unique. Basic subliminal advertising, because if they didn't and instead showed us the count of each sculpt in the set, it would seem like a much smaller assortment--which it clearly is.

I don't like it when a company does that kind of thing, as it obviously banks on the audience being too stupid to realize what they are doing--in this case, that we cannot count.

There were some neat pieces in that video, and there is in fact "Some" variety in sculpts, at least four different cabinet/ bookcase sculpts for example, if you include the rather useful-looking corner piece. But I'm less excited to see the KS after seeing the sloppy and misleading sales approach presented to viewers in terms of overall sculpt diversity.

Take that for what you will, but I am a much more "Practical" collector these days than I am a specialty one, so... I really want to like this project, but my hopes were dashed a little by that video.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely drooled (many times) over the Twisting Catacombs line, and was heart-broken that I could not participate in the KS, and similarly quite envious when I started seeing what folks were getting once it started shipping. Practical or not, Twisting Catacombs was freaking awesome and a great deal from what I have seen--there is no comparison here in my opinion, and for the serious collector, yeah, I don't think the Terrain Crate stuff will hold a candle to the "Real OG TC". Literally.

[Big Bene]

Oh, but I can and I will.

'Course you can, and you may do so all time. You won't convince me so fast, though. We still can agree to disagree.

Zombies: comparison with the unbelievable *lemony goodness* GW has to offer. Nothing much else on the market. The outrageously good Confrontation Zombies are hard to come by. But there are quite a few minis on the market that can stand in for Zoimbies but are named otherwise, like Malifaux's Living Impaired. Red Box's Zombies are too small and still way better than Mantic's in style, look and workability.

I agree that almost everything would look great in comparsion to the GW zombies.
And of course most people (including myself) have these in mind most of the time when making comparsions.
There may be some "high quality" zombie minis out there, a quality the the Mantic ones may not reach. But the quality is still solid (better than their skeletons, for example, and way better than the GW zombies), and you have to love the style and look (well, obviousely, you don't personally have to, you know it's just an expression, but it holds true here). Big holes right through the body (Death becomes her style), zombies holding their head in hand, zombies that consist only of a spine on legs, zombies just clawing their way out of the earth... I love these ideas, simple but effective. Plus, they still are very affordable, and that's what zombies are about: not "cool" individuals, but waves of waves of mindless cannonfodder. They are not meant for HQ, but for WH-style strategy games.
are st

Ghouls: GW's own crypt ghouls are way better looking even though slightly "alien", and Confrontation's are just gorgeous. Also: Heresy. Best ghouls on the market now.

Just. No. They are not "slightly alien", they are just surreal. They destroy my suspension of disbelief for the entire game. And they look nothing like "gothic" or "fantasy" in style. They defeat gravity, and I can't figure what these spikes on their backs are meant to be.
The old GW ghouls are still the best.
I use the Mantic ghouls as zombies. The normal, lurking, still not (very) rotten kind.

You say "great", I say lucky the big manufacturers don't have anything on the market that is buyable in regiment sizes.
Your great is my meh, and again: you would be of a different opinion if they weren't so cheap.
And the cheap comes with the territory, below-par quality and hard to work with.

No. See above. Cheapness certainly adds to the cake, but I even bought some of them (in a bits deal) before I even knew the company, just cause I thought they look great.

[knightkrawler]

I can't figure what these spikes on their backs are meant to be.

I'd wager it's bones protruding from their spine. No more surreal than a Stegadon. Or a Platypus.
I've read somewhere before that they defy gravity, but that may have been you...
And if they do defy gravity, what exactly do Mantic's do, crouched over like that?
To me, the Warhammer Crypt Ghouls simply run staggeringly with the help of their front claws, almost like a crow/chimpanzee hybrid.

The old GW ghouls are still the best.

Close second, topped by Heresy as the style is quite the same, but with much improved poses. Do you know them?
They look like the creatures from that awesome British movie The Descent.
Might as well show them here:

[ced1106]

Whoever thinks about getting the doors and furniture sets from Dungeon Saga...
Don't. You'll be disappointed.

I've heard otherwise from some BGG and Reaper posters.

The plastic will be the Walking Dead plastic, which holds details just fine for the figures I've seen.

Skrill's paintjob: http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/ ... ed-mantic/